A former employee at a Salt Lake City center that offers therapy to LGBTQ youth has been charged with sexually exploiting a minor after police say he shared child pornography on social media.
Tyler Neal Domgaard, 28, was arrested late last month and now faces three felony counts for the alleged exploitation. At the time when he viewed and posted the pictures, court documents say, he was working “at a mental health therapy provider which treats juveniles and family members.”
According to his online accounts, Domgaard had a job at Encircle, a nonprofit group that helps LGBTQ youth find community. He was previously listed on the group’s website as a program manager at the John Williams Encircle Home in Salt Lake City, according to an archived version of the staff page from August before he was arrested. The site describes that position as running the day-to-day operations of the home.
His profile, though, has since been removed, as have photos of Domgaard marching with Encircle’s staff at the Freedom Festival Parade in Provo when he was a volunteer in 2018.
Encircle’s CEO, Stephenie Larsen, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on his employment Wednesday evening. Domgaard also did not return calls; he also identifies as working for Encircle in his voicemail message.
The center began operations in Provo in 2016 before opening its second home in Salt Lake City in February 2019. Encircle focuses on providing therapy to LGBTQ teenagers and young adults and starting dialogues about orientation and identity with faith communities, such as The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
The charging documents do not allege that the exploitation with Domgaard involved any clients at Encircle. But according to a probable cause statement, he did post the pictures to a Twitter account, which he logged into while at work there in August 2019.
Police say they first went to Encircle to try to contact Domgaard in May after receiving a report about five posts of explicit pictures from an account tied to his address. Domgaard wasn’t there at the time, but he later called the officers back and acknowledged that he had the images and that his Twitter profile was suspended because of his activity. He said he got them from other Twitter users. He was charged shortly after.
He made an initial appearance in court on Aug. 31 and has been ordered not to have any contact with minors or use the internet.
The Utah attorney general’s office additionally identified Domgaard’s case Wednesday in a tweet as one that’s part of “a surge in file sharing of child sexual abuse imagery, with an increase of almost 50% more than last year.”
This year, the ICAC Task Force has seen a surge in file sharing of child sexual abuse imagery, with an increase of almost 50% more than last year. This case is one of them.
— Utah Attorney General (@UtahAG) September 16, 2020
To report a tip with the ICAC Task Force call: 801-281-1211. #utpol https://t.co/Fm0LfkyOLL
from The Salt Lake Tribune https://ift.tt/3iEpiAW
September 17, 2020 at 06:26AM
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